


dab means "drugs are bad"

by silverislander



Category: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Forehead Kisses, Idiots in Love, Medical Inaccuracies, POV Dina (The Last of Us), Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Sleepy Cuddles, ellie follows in joel's footsteps of irresponsible use of painkillers, google says expired advil just doesnt do anything. i say fuck you i do what i want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27888229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverislander/pseuds/silverislander
Summary: There’s definitely something wrong with her.  The only times Dina has ever seen Ellie act like this has been when she was really, really high.... Wait.
Relationships: Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 170





	dab means "drugs are bad"

Between the two of them, Ellie is almost always the one to get hurt on patrol. She’s surprisingly accident-prone for someone who’s so good at her job, and she’s got the crazy stories and hundreds of tiny scars to prove it.

Today, she’s just unlucky enough for it to be something painful.

It was stupid. She’d jumped off a roof trying to duck for cover, and then she’d landed on her feet like some kind of goddamn amateur instead of rolling. Dina felt lucky to have been there; she’d taken out the straggler and climbed down to meet Ellie, who lay groaning on the ground.

“You good?”

“Do I look good?” Ellie grunts, reaching for her left leg.

“What hurts?” Dina is immediately clinical, crouching and laying a hand on the leg that seems to be the issue. They’re about a six hour ride from Jackson, and the sun will start to set in five hours. If she’s really injured, there’s no way they’ll make it back home today.

“My knee. Fuck,” Ellie spits, sitting up and clutching at it as she tries to push herself off the ground. Her leg buckles beneath her as soon as she puts her weight on it, and she falls. “Fucking  _ fuck _ .”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“No shit, Dina!” She actually sounds like she’s in pain. She isn’t usually like this- Ellie’s been known to take a horrifying injury and hide it right until she’s through the gates again. She has a scary high pain tolerance, and because of that, Dina makes it a habit not to let her continue without a proper look at any wound she gets. She could get shot and she’d limp home like nothing was wrong.

All of this, combined with the fact that she now appears to be in real pain, sort of scares Dina.

“In here, let’s take a look at it.” Ellie starts to protest, but Dina waves her off and helps her up, letting her lean heavily on her shoulders. Together, they stagger into the nearest house with an intact roof and door, Ellie cursing all the way.

There are actual, honest-to-God tears in her green eyes when Dina carefully maneuvers her to lie on her back on the living room couch. Her jaw is set tightly and she is trying very hard not to whimper, but it’s slipping out anyways.

“Don’t go anywhere,” Dina instructs. “I’m gonna see what we’ve got for first aid.”

“Got it,” Ellie grits out, settling awkwardly into the dingy old couch. Dina nods, turns and all but runs out to the horses.

She’s able to hitch them up to a chain link fence pretty quickly and brings the side packs inside before opening them. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot she can think to do. Ellie isn’t bleeding, so she won’t need stitches or bandages; there’s no area to clean, so alcohol wipes are out; Ellie’s fresh out of painkillers since she never remembers to refill her patrol bags and Dina has exactly one Tylenol and it’s for colds; the whole experience makes her feel panicky and useless. She takes the ace bandages and a washcloth, because you can never go wrong with those, and heads back to Ellie.

“There’s not a lot there, sorry.” She shows Ellie the supplies and grimaces.

“That’s okay. Do we have any pain meds?” She looks so hopeful, and fuck, Dina can’t just give up on her like that.

“None in the packs,” she starts, and Ellie’s face falls. “But I‘m gonna look around, see what we can do.”

“Don’t- be careful,” Ellie mutters, furrowing her eyebrows.

“I won’t,” Dina jokes. Ellie flips her off, but she’s smiling, and that’s a little better already.

* * *

The upstairs bathroom has nothing but allergy medication and pills Dina doesn’t recognize. She figures she’s better off safe than sorry and leaves them all there. The bedroom isn’t much better- scattered pills for a heart condition and some little ovals that, on closer inspection, turn out to just be mint candy. There’s a bathroom attached to the bedroom, though, and that’s where she finds what she’s looking for. Two mostly-full bottles are behind the mirror- acetaminophen  _ and _ ibuprofen, a veritable gold mine of drugs. Dina takes both, stuffs them into her pockets and quickly debates which one to give her friend.

She races down the stairs to the couch, where she triumphantly shakes the bottles. Ellie cheers halfheartedly, having sat herself up and now rubs and prods at her knee over her jeans.

“I want to take a look at it first,” Dina says. “We’ll get an idea of what’s wrong, then I’ll give you something for it.”

“Can I please have the pills first?” Ellie asks in a small voice. She’s always hated asking for help, admitting that something’s wrong or she’s not strong enough for the situation. Dina would love to give in immediately at those puppy eyes and her flushed cheeks, but she really should get a better idea of what she’s dealing with. She doesn’t want to give Ellie the wrong pills.

“Sorry, but we’ve really gotta do this. Let me see.”

Ellie starts to pull her pants leg up, but makes a face as she starts to pull the tighter part over her swelling knee. Dina reaches to help, but she bats her away gently. Her jeans still don’t make it over her calf. She flops back down with a huff.

“I can’t pull it up,” she admits quietly.

“Do you want me to try?”

“No, it’s just- it’s too tight around my knee. It’s not me, I just don’t think you could help any more.” She looks like she’s about to cry out of pain or frustration. “I don’t wanna cut them off.” Quietly, she adds, “It’s gonna be fucking cold tomorrow... and they’re my nice jeans.”

“Sit up again,” Dina says gently. Ellie does. “Take them off, okay? I’ll help,” she asks.

Ellie’s eyes widen in something like panic, and her entire face goes red.  _ This won’t be any easier for me, Freckles _ , Dina thinks, laughing at her expression.

“Chill out, I’m not trying to get in your pants.”  _ You know, unless you asked, in which case- _ “I just want to see your leg, okay? Let me help.”

Ellie doesn’t look at her, but she nods once, quick and sharp. Her face is still beet-red, and she’s scratching her knuckles in that nervous way of hers. It’s cute, Dina thinks.

Ellie slowly starts to unbuckle her belt, shifting uncomfortably with a grimace to lift her hips and slide it out of the belt loops of her jeans. Then she undoes the buttons (Dina watches her hands with a totally normal amount of interest) and starts to push the pants off, making quiet little noises of pain as she moves. Dina wordlessly starts to untie her shoelaces and slip her old sneakers off.

Ellie bends one knee, but winces as the other starts to move, and Dina takes over for her, carefully taking hold of the bottom of her pants legs first and pulling them down. Ellie is silent, breathing quiet and shaky, although that’s probably the pain. Dina tries her best to be gentle and not startle her as she moves her hands up and takes hold of her waistband and slides it down her legs.

Ellie has little freckles on her thighs. She wants so badly to kiss them. She doesn’t do that, though.

Ellie meets her eyes for a millisecond and looks, biting the side of her lip with a dark blush, as though she might combust right then and there, so Dina wastes no time. Her jeans are off quickly after that, and Dina doesn’t bother to fold them, just drops them over the arm of the couch and focuses on her friend’s knee. She does not sneak a look back at Ellie, pouting in the cutest way in her hoodie and boxers and socks, and she  _ does not _ feel immediately warm.

“Alright, so it hurts most when you put weight on it, right?” Dina asks. She gently starts to press on different areas, stopping when Ellie makes a noise or winces. It’s already bruising, but it’s not too swollen yet and the shape doesn’t look or feel strange to the point of a break.

“Yeah.”

“It doesn’t feel broken, which is good, but I’m a little worried about what else it could be.” Dina tries to recall her sister talking about tendons, ligaments, muscles. There were three types of ligaments in the knee and she can’t remember a single goddamn one. “Did you hear a popping sound when you landed?”

“I don’t know,” Ellie mutters unhelpfully. “It was loud. The guy had a gun, I’m not really listening to my body in the moment or anything.”

“Did you feel like something snapped?”

“Not really, it just feels kind of... tight? And it aches.”

“Okay, so it’s probably not torn. That’s good, that could fuck you up for life.” Dina is technically done checking Ellie’s leg, but she keeps her hands there, just for security’s sake. Instead of poking and rubbing at her injury any more, Dina scrapes her short nails over it gently, hoping it’ll soothe both of them at least a little bit. Ellie visibly relaxes as she does, settling into deep, calm breaths. “Something’s definitely sprained, though, since you can’t stand on it. We’re not getting back home tonight.”

Ellie sighs and looks down in her lap, fiddling with her hands. Dina feels bad for her; she had talked on and on about her plans to stay in with her games tonight. Apparently, she’d found a new game on her last patrol- something about tomb raiding, Dina doesn’t really remember the plot.

“I’ve got the horses dealt with, don’t worry. We can stay here for the night and try to get out tomorrow morning.” As she’s speaking, it doesn’t even feel like a good idea. The house has so many goddamn windows (why did people have so many windows in the pre-outbreak times? wasn’t that dangerous? anyone could just break in with a brick or something) and they’re all broken. The door, while able to close, isn’t going to lock without a key neither of them have access to, and Dina doesn’t feel good about sleeping in the middle of nowhere in plain sight with only one flimsy door to protect them.

It’s like Ellie can read her mind sometimes. “We’re gonna have to move. This room isn’t safe.”

“Here, take this first.” Dina picks up the ibuprofen on a whim. She can almost remember someone telling her it was an anti-inflammatory, and Ellie’s knee looks like it will definitely swell by morning. The label on the side is torn and faded, with what could either be the top of a two or a three under the max dose. She tosses Ellie the bottle, figuring she might know better what it’s supposed to say.

Ellie opens it, downs a couple pills dry, and reads the label after she’s taken them, so perhaps she didn’t know either. Whatever. Dina’s pretty sure it was a three.

“Extra strength. Nice,” Ellie remarks. “We can always use more of this stuff.”

“What are you thinking, upstairs or downstairs?” Dina asks. Neither is good. Upstairs means no hasty escape, especially with Ellie in her condition, but downstairs risks infected who’ve been trapped in the damp and darkness. It’s not likely- they’re pretty good at clearing anything near the town- but it’s always a concern.

“Let’s go with upstairs,” Ellie decides, propping herself up and slowly swinging her legs to the ground. “Maybe there’s at least a real bed.” Suddenly, she flushes again as she looks down and remembers she’s still not wearing pants.

“Go on, Williams,” Dina teases, dark eyes flickering up and down her body dramatically. “I was enjoying the show.” Ellie rolls her eyes and stands shakily, leaning heavily on the side of the couch.

“Just fucking help me up.”

* * *

They make it to the stairs, but Ellie lets out a groan that causes Dina to stare at her in panic the second she’s onto the first step.

“Are you sure you can-”

“I’m fucking fine, Dina, keep going.”

By the fourth step it is plainly obvious that she is not fucking fine. Her teeth are gritted and she’s making these noises that sound like crying every time she moves her leg. Dina has had enough of her trying to soldier through it.

“Sit down.”

“What?”

“Sit down, I’m gonna carry you up.”  _ I’m going to try _ , she thinks. Dina is strong, but Ellie is heavier than she looks, and the idea of both of them falling down the hardwood stairs and getting hurt even worse fucking terrifies her. She almost wishes they’d chosen to sleep downstairs, but then she remembers that they’d just have to get back up the next morning.

Ellie looks like she wants to argue, but instead lets herself slip to the floor awkwardly, facing Dina, like a child listening in the stairwell. Dina sits a few stairs down and lets Ellie shuffle until her torso is flat to Dina’s back. Ellie wraps her arms around her neck, and Dina starts to hold her legs up around her and get both of them to their feet.

It’s incredibly distracting. Ellie’s pressed fully up against her, her arms around her shoulders, and she smells weirdly good for what they’ve been doing all day. She just smells comfortingly normal, like the vaguely spicy soap she always uses. How is she not gross too? Dina’s sweating through her shirt and she knows she’s got to smell awful by now. That’s not even remotely fair.

Even worse, her hands are firmly around Ellie’s bare thighs. They’re just about the only part of Ellie that can be described as soft, the part with the least scars and calloused patches. Her mind is running wild with thoughts of all the other reasons she could be touching Ellie there. Her face is burning. Ellie’s got to be able to tell.

“You okay?” Ellie asks softly. Fuck, she sounds unfairly cute when she talks like that. Her breath tickles on the shell of Dina’s ear, and she fights to keep her breaths steady. Ever since Ellie’s rough voice lowered last summer, she’s been finding herself doing that more often.

“Yeah, I got you,” Dina all but stammers, taking the first step up. It’s precarious, but they don’t fall.  _ It’s a start _ .

Ellie holds a little tighter, shifting and digging her fingers into Dina’s shoulders.  _ She’s probably just as nervous as I am _ . Dina helps her move further up on her back and steps up another stair, and another.

* * *

Twelve steps to the top, and every one felt like a death trap. Carefully, Dina drops Ellie to where she can stand against the railing and catches her breath for a minute.

“Sorry,” Ellie offers.

“Don’t be.” Dina props her up again and walks her into the bedroom where she found the pills. Ellie flops onto the bed gratefully and lies down, settling to one side and patting the space next to her eagerly.

“I’ve got to get our stuff,” Dina reminds her. Ellie huffs playfully, but smiles and nods toward the door.

Dina rushes downstairs and grabs their bags, returning to the bed and jumping so she lands hard and makes the bed creak underneath them. Ellie squeaks, startled, and Dina laughs, settling into the bare mattress and stretching dramatically.

“Dick.” Ellie punches her arm, and Dina feigns offense.

“I’m just trying to have some fun here, El. In case you haven't noticed, this place kind of sucks.”

* * *

They talk for some time- nothing important, just whatever comes to mind. Slowly, Dina feels the panic drain out of her, and slowly, Ellie starts to relax.

Maybe she’s a little too relaxed.

When Dina asks her a question, she notices Ellie stare off into space before responding. She’s moving lazily, and while what she’s doing isn’t quite slurring her words, she’s not really pronouncing them either. She has this dopey look on her face, too, like she’s not all there.

“Ellie, are you feeling okay?” she asks eventually. Ellie looks startled, but gives her a thumbs-up.

“Yeah, I’m great.”

“Does your knee still hurt?”

“No. Why?” Ellie turns to look at her and, to Dina’s surprise, doesn’t look away. She just keeps looking at her, face in something close to awe that she seems to think she’s hiding.

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.” The injury can’t be infected or anything, she reminds herself. There was no open wound. She still doesn’t stop worrying.

Ellie sighs and flops back on the pillows behind her, still facing Dina. “I’m tired.”

“Then sleep.”

“Don’t wanna.” Ellie, not wanting to sleep? It sounds like a blatant lie.

“I’ll keep watch, don’t worry. You’re not gonna be any help like this anyway.” Dina starts to get off the bed, but Ellie practically  _ whines _ her name in the sweetest goddamn way, and she’s back down again faster than she stood with the feeling of a flutter in her stomach. “What is it?”

“Don’t go,” Ellie pleads, eyes wide. There’s definitely something wrong with her. The only times Dina has ever seen Ellie act like this has been when she was really,  _ really _ high.

... Wait.

Dina snatches the pill bottle from the bedside table. “You took three of these, right?”

“I dunno.” Ellie shrugs, making an unconcerned face.

“What do you mean, you don’t know? You opened them yourself.”

“I wasn’t, like, counting ‘em or anything. Might’ve been more.”

“Ellie!”

“It’s fine, Joel does it all the time. He just, like, eats random pills off the ground an’ stuff. I even know what I took this time, so that’s way better than him.” What the fuck? Dina’s going to have to have a serious talk with Joel about proper drug use, which… really, is a little ironic when she thinks about it.

Dina inspects the bottle, squinting. The label is faded and almost unreadable- "almost" being the key word. If she really concentrates, the number that she wasn’t sure of before was two.

And Ellie took  _ three _ \- no,  _ at least _ three. And they’re extra strength painkillers. And they’re definitely at least twenty years expired.

Fuck. At least she knew what was wrong now.

She sighs and lies back down, and Ellie smiles and shuffles a little closer- much closer than she’d usually be. It’s not that they don’t lie together like this, but Dina is very used to Ellie’s aversion to touch and initiating any contact on her own. When they watch movies together, she has to be very careful to not surprise Ellie if she wants to get close to her. She’ll either start off the movie already in Ellie’s lap, or she’ll make a fuss halfway through to get into Ellie’s lap. Ellie never starts it, but she never protests.

Now, Ellie’s face is less than six inches away from hers, and she’s facing her, while still awake, still with that dumb grin on her face. Oh, she’s definitely high.

“I can’t believe you did that,” Dina whispers, shaking her head.

“It’s  _ fine _ ,” Ellie insists. “Sometimes I think it actually helps Joel. Maybe it’ll make my leg go fast. Heal fast. Fuck.”

“You’re spacing out a lot,” Dina remarks with amusement.

“I am spacing out a lot,” Ellie repeats. Dina can practically see the cogs turning in her head as she tries to form even that short sentence.

They lay there in silence for a second before Ellie says, very quietly and seriously, “I like your freckles.”

Dina snorts. “Thank you.”

“You always call me Freckles even though you have them too. That’s funny.”

“You’re having some big thoughts tonight, huh?”

Ellie doesn’t respond, lost in her head again. She smiles, a little delayed, and shuffles even closer to Dina, huffing out a breath when she relaxes again. It blows a stray bit of hair into Dina’s eyes, and she laughs and fixes it.

“Alright, space cadet, take a nap.” She pats Ellie’s cheek like a child, and Ellie frowns.

“I don’t want to take a nap.”

“Then what do you want?” Jesus, if Ellie was stubborn before, this was like talking to a wall.

“I wanna stay up and talk to you.” She has this adorable grumpy look on her face, with her nose scrunched and eyes overly serious. Dina knows she needs sleep for that leg to heal, but really, she’s too fun like this to pass up the opportunity. She’s definitely teasing Ellie about this later.

“I’m going to get ready for the night now, Ellie,” Dina exaggerates. Maybe it’ll give Ellie an incentive to sleep too. She shuffles over to her bag and pulls out a few things: blankets for them to share, extra socks for the morning and a handgun that goes on the bedside table. She keeps the painkillers on her side of the bed where Ellie can’t reach- she won’t let her take any more until these ones have fully worn off, and if she has to, she’s going to fucking count them out for her. Leave it to Ellie to accidentally get stoned on Advil.

Ellie watches her intently. Her gaze is steady and as focused as Dina’s seen her since the meds kicked in, tracing the lines of Dina’s hands and face like she’s committing them to memory. When Dina starts to undo her jacket, Ellie looks away, face red, but sneaks some very unsubtle glances when she thinks Dina can’t see her. Dina isn’t about to lie to herself and say she isn’t loving the attention.

When Dina turns around again, Ellie is flipping her knife open and closed, spinning it between her fingers. Dina almost has a heart attack every time Ellie drops the blade into her lap, giggling quietly.

She rolls her eyes. “You need anything?” she asks, flicking the blanket over to Ellie. The weather is warm enough for her to sleep in her shirt and underwear, but they’ll still need a blanket for the chill in the morning.

“No,” Ellie replies contentedly. She puts the knife down under the old pillow and continues to stare at Dina.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m good.” Dina turns to double-check her bags and hang them in the old closet, off the ground and out of sight, when Ellie adds, “You’re really pretty, Dina.”

“I know,” she laughs. Something in her heart jumps, though. She squashes it back down.

“No, you’re really  _ really _ pretty. You’re really pretty.” Ellie makes motions with her hands as if she could demonstrate how pretty she is with size. It’s comically exaggerated, and she adds to it with unfocused eyes and an awestruck look, like she really means it- like she understands what she’s saying.

It’s fun when Dina flirts with Ellie to watch her stammer and get flustered, but this just feels cruel to her. It isn’t going to happen, Ellie’s been brushing her off for years and she should be with Jesse, even though they’ve been broken up (again) for almost a month now. Ellie might like girls, but they’re going to stay friends anyway because Ellie doesn’t like  _ her _ like that.

Dina isn’t really enjoying this anymore.

“Okay, Ellie, whatever you say.” She sits back down, and suddenly an arm is around her waist. Surprised, she looks down to see Ellie giving her a pleading look, sprawled across the bed on her stomach.

“C’mere,” she asks. What is Dina supposed to do? Her mind is distracted by Ellie’s calloused hands, gentle and sturdy on her hips. She just listens and crawls under the blankets with Ellie before she can think twice.

“What is it?” Dina whispers. It feels like a moment where she should whisper.

“Wanna cuddle, ‘s’all,” Ellie mumbles, face red. She worms her way closer to Dina, grunting when she moves her injured leg, and ends up inches in front of her. Dina’s breath feels suddenly shallow.

Regardless, she takes Ellie into her arms, where her friend smiles peacefully and curls up into her chest like she was made for it. A smile finds its way to Dina’s face too- Ellie’s are always infectious to her. Maybe it’s because they’re so rare.

“You comfy?” she asks. She’s still fretting about the pills and Ellie’s knee and the million things that could go wrong while Ellie’s basically out of commission. Ellie lets out a tiny, distracted “mhm”, hands finding their way around Dina and running up and down her back slowly in a way that gives her chills.

They lie there in silence like that, wound around each other, and Ellie switches from stroking Dina’s back to tapping it gently and back again. Dina can’t seem to relax enough to fall asleep. Her shoulders feel tense every time Ellie exhales over her neck. She’s not going to be able to get to sleep this way.

Dina considers giving in, tipping Ellie’s face up to meet hers and kissing her, just once, only gently, only with the softness Ellie deserves and sees so little of. She imagines, for a moment, how it would feel- the hard line of Ellie’s jaw in her palms, the way she would tense up in surprise as she’s pressed to Dina fully, and the softness of her lips. She’s spent a lot of time staring at Ellie’s mouth lately. It’s starting to get concerning.

Ellie is saying something muffled and slurred. “What?” Dina asks.

“Dina...” Ellie’s voice is distracted and dreamy, as it has been for hours now. “Dina, do you ever… think about, about kissin’ girls?”

“Ellie, you literally helped me come out to Jesse. You know I do.”

“Oh yeah.” Ellie settles back into her spot, but Dina can practically see the gears turning in her head.  _ She’s a very intelligent idiot _ , she thinks. Something her mother used to say jokingly.

“What are you thinking about?” she pushes.

“You,” Ellie replies honestly.

It shouldn’t surprise Dina, it’s such a simple answer that might not, probably doesn’t, mean anything, but it feels like someone lit a sparkler behind her ribs. Suddenly, she feels some kind of warming, gorgeous, bright hope, and a cold nervousness holding her lungs behind it that she’s not unfamiliar with.

“What about me?” she asks. Her voice is barely there, lower than a whisper.

“Just you. You’re so great and nice and cool. You’re way cooler than me or anyone else in town. And you’re pretty. Did I tell you that? Because I want to make sure you know, ‘kay, Dina?” Ellie suddenly looks up, eyes shining, and takes her face in her hands so Dina can’t look anywhere else even if she wanted to.

Ellie is blinding, even in this darkness on a disgusting old mattress in an abandoned home with a fucked up leg. Dina wants, not for the first time, to… she just  _ wants _ . She knows with total clarity: this girl is gonna be the death of her.

“You’re beautiful,” Ellie breathes, and shuffles up and  _ kisses _ Dina firmly on the forehead. She pulls away giggling and stares as if she can’t understand the gravity of what she’s doing to Dina’s poor heart.

Dina stares in shock, and Ellie seems to take this as some kind of acknowledgement or something because she kisses Dina’s cheek then, gentle and feather-light, and drops bonelessly to the bed, curling up again as best she can.

Dina looks up at the ceiling and tries to make her brain turn on again.

Her lips were just as soft as she’d always imagined.

Ellie is relaxing now, eyelids drooping and hands opening from loose fists. Dina still can’t, because what the fuck? What does that even mean? She’s high, but drunk words are usually sober thoughts, but Ellie doesn’t like her. She can’t, that doesn’t make any sense. They’re best friends.

She remembers the days they meet up early in the morning to start causing trouble for the day, the way they pretend to mock and one-up each other until one of them broke character and laughed. Things Ellie told her that she’d been sworn to secrecy about, how Ellie seemed to treasure every sharp little shard of Dina’s past she was trusted with and always remembered to keep her busy outside the house on the anniversary of Talia’s death. How Ellie said nobody helped with her worst episodes but Joel and her, how nobody could because they were who she trusted most.

She remembers Ellie staring at her from across the bar, smiling when she thought Dina wasn’t looking. The awe on her face when she saw Dina out-shoot Jesse with her rifle for the first time. Ellie’s freckles disappearing under her blush when Dina not-so-jokingly flirted with her.

…  _ Oh _ .

She isn’t going to do anything about it yet- it would be completely wrong to, with Ellie in this state, but she puts the knowledge away in the back of her mind like a treasure. She can’t keep a smile off her face, and she thanks the darkness because it means Ellie can’t see her like this, feeling soft and distracted.

Ellie tucks herself closer, and Dina holds her a little bit tighter. There would come a time to tell her, and she’ll do it right when it comes. It isn’t tonight, though.

Ellie mumbles something and Dina shivers as her soft lips brush her collarbone.

“What?” she asks, for the last time that night.

“I love you,” Ellie mutters.

Dina feels like jumping up and dancing, like yelling, like kissing Ellie properly and never letting her go again. Instead, she allows herself to smile and kiss Ellie’s hairline, and it makes Ellie sigh and wiggle even closer. She can feel her sweet contented smile against her neck.

“I love you too,” Dina whispers. Ellie can take that however she wants- as friends, as her family, as more, because really, she’s everything. She’s all of it to Dina.

Tomorrow morning, they will limp out into the grey dawn and struggle home. Ellie won’t remember and so Dina will tell her again and then, if she gets what she’s after, tell everyone, that she loves her. Tonight, Ellie falls asleep first, cuddled securely into Dina, and slowly, Dina falls asleep to a dream of soft music and strawberries and auburn hair under her gentle hands.

It feels like enough for now.

**Author's Note:**

> ok so, funny story, this is loosely based off of something that actually happened to me. i'm a major lightweight when it comes to medications, and regular advil usually makes me a little loopy. one time at camp i caught a really nasty cold, and when i went to see the camp nurse she gave me two extra strength advil for it. i shit you not when i say i took the meds, walked into choir... and then i was in my room on the other side of camp and two hours had passed. it's fucking hilarious to me
> 
> and a little fun fact: next friday is my birthday, and it will also be the day i am finally caught up on posting my older writing!! unless i decide to post that _other_ fic afterwards, which i'm not sure about doing yet. it's a sort of sequel to "extraordinary" and uh,,, she's the spiciest thing i've ever written 👀
> 
> if you want to yell at/with me, i go by the same username on tumblr! you should def comment here or shoot me an ask, comments are a massive shot of serotonin and finals week is about to kick my ass so any feedback is greatly appreciated


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